Admission to elite colleges and universities has become much more competitive in recent years, yet only rarely have social scientists considered the consequences of the selective admissions race for American culture more generally. New York University sociologist Mitchell Stevens does just this in Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites (Harvard University Press), a controversial new ethnography, arguing that the organization of selective admissions has had far-reaching effects on the national class system and upper-middle-class family life.

Richard Arum (moderator) is Professor of Sociology at New York University and Program Director for Education Research at the Social Science Research Council.

Mitchell Duneier is Professor of Sociology at Princeton University.

Dalton Conley is University Professor of the Social Sciences and Chair of the Department of Sociology at New York University.

Judith Stacey is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and Sociology at New York University.